Boxing Day Concert – St Martin in the Fields
On Boxing Day, we were delighted to be invited to perform in one of London’s finest Churches for classical music - St Martin in the Fields, Trafalgar Square. The concert was held at lunchtime, with free entrance and donations to the many good causes supported by St Martin’s. Having a concert of Christmas carols arranged for [...]
Noel Nouvelet
The final track on our album It Came Upon The Midnight Clear and other carols is the ancient French piece, ‘Noel Nouvelet’. Like many traditional melodies it has a complicated history that means there are a variety of sources, largely inconsistent. This in no way detracts from the majestic power of this melody which made it [...]
See Amid the Winter’s Snow
The twelfth carol on our second volume of carols is an arrangement of ‘See Amid the Winter’s Snow’ by John Goss. It is also known as ‘Hymn For Christmas Day’ and the melody first appeared in Bramley and Stainer’s ‘Christmas Carols New and Old’. Rather like ‘It Came Upon The Midnight Clear’, it is a [...]
Past Three O’Clock
The words to this splendid Christmas carol were written by George Ratcliffe Woodward for the ‘Cambridge carol book’ of 1924. He based them on the cry of the city night watchman and added them to an existing refrain that has it’s origins in Playford’s ‘Dancing Master’ of the 17th century. The tune is a traditional [...]
We Wish You a Merry Christmas
The ninth track on our second volume of Christmas carols (entitled ‘It Came Upon The Midnight Clear and other carols’) is the ubiquitous ‘We Wish You A Merry Christmas’. The carol is thought to have originated from the 16th century in the west country of England where travelling ‘waits’ sang Christmas carols for food or [...]
Gaudete! Gaudete! Christus est Natus
This carol is another that appeared in the celebrated collection of sacred songs of 1582 entitled ‘Piae Cantiones’. The manuscript does not contain any melody for the verses and the standard version comes from other liturgical sources. The folk rock outfit ‘Steeleye Span’ did it a huge service by releasing a version in 1973 that appeared [...]
Good King Wenceslas
This melody is said to have originated in the 13th century with the pretty title ‘Tempus Adest Floridum’ (‘The Time For Flowering’) and as such was a spring carol. It appeared in the famous Finnish collection of 1582 entitled ‘Piae Contiones’ and it wasn’t until the 19th century that it gained it’s present title, along [...]
Sussex Carol – English Traditional
This year has once again been very busy with the arranging and recording of a second volume of Christmas carols. The album is entitled ‘It Came Upon The Midnight Clear and other carols’ and is available from our website as well as on itunes, CD baby and Amazon in time for Christmas 2011. Deciding which carols to include in this second [...]
O Come, All Ye Faithful for String Quartet
Also known as ‘Adeste Fidelis’ this is one of the most recognisable carols of them all and dates back to the 18th century. The music was thought to be written by John Reading in the early 1700s with the words written by John Francis Wade in 1751 (published in a collection called ‘Cantus Diversi’). As [...]
O Come, O Come Emmanuel for String Quartet
This haunting melody is thought to have originated in France in the 13th century and added to a latin text which dates from a century earlier. The text is based on the biblical prophecy that states that God will give Israel a sign that will be called Immanuel (which literally means ‘ God with us’). [...]
